Chapter Text
Her alarm was going off.
Blinking awake, Violet discovered that she was not, in fact, in her bed. And what she had thought was her alarm clock was a ringing in her ears that slowly subsided as she came to. Her heart jumped into her throat.
Where am I?
She was surrounded on all sides by dark walls and...trash. There were trash bins everywhere. An alley of some kind?
She pinched herself. Ow. Pinched herself again. Yup. Still hurt.
Okay, definitely not a dream. Right?
Maybe I’m hallucinating.
Drugs? I don’t do drugs.
Someone drugged me?
The last thing she remembered was that she was on her way to change into comfy clothes before sitting down to watch a TV show.
Okay, not drugs then. Let’s take a look around this definite hallucination of mine. She crept to the end of the alley.
And almost fell over.
Both from shock and because someone rammed into her.
“Move it,” the stranger growled. Violet was a bit too preoccupied by his three eyestalks to make any more response than a strangled yelp.
Gran, her brain supplied helpfully.
And it was then, as her neurons caught up with her optical nerves, that her brain began a rapid assimilation. Everything came into focus, an image rendering in real time.
She stood in the middle of a walkway, people—no, aliens—streaming around her on all sides. It was night. And yet all around her it was light.
City. City lights.
She looked up. Her heart nearly stopped.
The city stretched miles above her into the sky, and the sky itself roared with air traffic. Lanes upon lanes of vehicles whizzing past so quickly they were nearly blurs. They were—they looked like speeders. From Star Wars. No, they were exactly like speeders. The city looked exactly like—
Oh, sakes alive, I’m on Coruscant.
No. That’s not possible. This isn’t real.
The Rodian (her brain was contributing species names faster than she could stop it) who bumped rather painfully into her next felt supremely real.
Okay. Calm down. This can’t be real.
She shoved through the throng to the edge of the walkway and looked down. Her stomach lurched. It was a long, long way down.
“Okay, okay,” she found herself muttering out loud. “Okay. Let’s treat it like it’s real. Best case, we survive the dream until it inevitably dissolves into nonsense. Worst case, we survive...whatever this is.”
She tore her gaze away from the depths below and began to analyze. It was what she did best. Step one: observe, take in the situation. Step two: spiral over the possibilities. Step three: make a plan. The people (or sentients?) around her were ignoring her for the time being. To them, she was just another life-form on a crowded ecumenopolis. That was good.
Where am I?
Her surroundings provided the answer. These were very obviously not the high-class restaurants and Senate buildings of the upper levels of the city. In fact, she was facing what seemed to be the equivalent of a very grimy hole-in-the-wall dive bar.
The lower levels of Coruscant: where the slavers and the criminals resided.
I’m going to die. I’m going to be jumped and murdered in a Coruscant back alley and die.
The pressure in her chest and throat was building and she fought back terrified tears. She took a deep breath. Then another. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Think.
As much as she tried to convince herself it was still a dream or the result of some misused medication, her instinctual brain did not believe her. Everything was just too real. She could hear the distinct melody of the music blaring from multiple businesses at once, along with the garbled sounds of differing alien languages layered on top of each other. Even the air itself was unfamiliar: thicker, clogged with the smell of fuel and sewage. Each and every detail stood out in perfect clarity, from the wrinkled faces of Weequay to the vanilla scent wafting off a nearby Kitonak playing some type of keyboard instrument.
Jedi! The Jedi Temple is on Coruscant!
She almost laughed out loud in relief. If she could just get to the Temple, she’d be safe. The only problem was how to get there. Surely there was some method of public transportation? Or taxis? Air taxis? She didn't have any money for a taxi fare anyway. In fact, she didn't have anything at all. Not her phone, not her wallet, not even her watch.
Dream logic, she told herself.
But she reluctantly realized that this meant she would have to ask someone.
She eyed the pedestrians nearby, searching for someone who did not look like they would kill her if she so much as approached them. Slim pickings. Maybe the musician was her best bet.
“Excuse me?” Violet approached the Kitonak hesitantly. “Excuse me? Sir?” Inwardly, she winced, hoping that it was, indeed, a male. He stopped playing and looked up slowly.
“...What do you want?” His speech was slow, each word carefully placed like someone balancing pebbles on top of one another.
“So sorry, but do you know where I can find transportation to the upper levels?” The shaking in her voice betrayed her, though she was attempting to stay calm.
Wordlessly, the Kitonak pointed down the walkway. “Turbolift. At the pink sign.” She could see the pink neon sign he indicated, about fifty yards further down the pedwalk (she vaguely remembered the term now).
“Thank you!” She took a deep breath and started off towards the sign. She did her best to keep her head down, afraid that if she made eye contact, they would take notice of her. It was the opposite of everything her mother had taught her—stand tall, look confident, don’t look like an easy target. But she was certain all of that advice would only make her stand out more here.
She made it to the pink sign and the turbolift, and joined the line that waited there. She peered up from under her own brows, too curious not to try to observe those around her. Two cloaked and hooded humans spoke in low voices to each other. Violet turned to look behind her, then immediately regretted it when she saw a Quarren looming over her. She shifted uneasily.
I can’t die if this is a dream.
It’s not a dream, that small and very annoying part of her brain whispered.
The turbolift returned before she could think too hard about it, and she boarded with a dozen other various creatures and people.
It stank.
She was crammed in between a rather bulky figure in a mask and scrap armor plates, and one very flabby Twi’lek. She did her best not to move a single muscle, and breathed as shallowly as possible. Just make it to the next level. Her heart was still rattling against her ribcage. She crossed her arms tightly to stop the adrenaline twitches.
The turbolift shot upwards. Violet only kept her balance because of how tightly she was wedged in. A few got off at the next level. By the time they reached the level after that, it was just her in the corner, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact with the Trandoshan opposite her. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she thought it would vibrate the wall behind her. The Trandoshan was looking at her with alarmingly yellow eyes. Oh, kriff—why are you swearing in Basic?—forget it, he’s coming over. He shifted in her direction. No no no no. There was a blaster on his hip. A freaking blaster.
DING!
The turbolift stopped, opened, and in the exchange of passengers, the Trandoshan disappeared. This load of pedestrians was noticeably from the higher levels--ordinary citizens and even a few children. Violet’s heart rate slowed by a few beats per minute. She stayed put for level after level, trying not to anxiously tap her foot, until finally, finally, a calm automated voice overhead said,
“Senate Level.”
Senate. Senate. That meant pre-Imperial era, right? Or maybe it meant the Imperial Senate.
Please, please don’t let me be dropped in the middle of the Clone Wars.
The turbolift chimed, and Violet stepped out onto a much brighter and fancier pedwalk. Directly across from her, a giant holoscreen played a repeating montage of battlefield victories, with a flashing slogan in Aurebesh superimposed over the video. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t yet deciphered the words; she would recognize that Phase I armor anywhere.
The Clone Wars.
Great. Just great.
Violet swallowed hard. It could be worse. She could have been put smack in the middle of the Sith Wars. Or in the cockpit of a starfighter in the middle of a firefight. Or on the Death Star right before it exploded. Or—
Okay, stop. Stop.
She wondered what time it was. Though it was clearly night, the city was still alive and bustling. She imagined an expanse like Coruscant would never sleep anyways. This was clearly a much more affluent district, as evidenced by the colorful robes and extravagant styles that washed past her in the flow of pedestrian traffic. Violet suddenly felt very small and very out of place in her baggy "Shotgun Willie" t-shirt and self-embroidered jeans, surrounded by so much finery. She’d only just registered that she was still in the clothes she was wearing before she woke up here, too busy not having a panic attack to care until now. Oh well. There were plenty of strange styles in the galaxy. Perhaps she could start a new trend. She snorted aloud at her own joke. It was either that or burst into tears.
Making her way to the edge of the pedwalk, she searched the skyline for the familiar silhouette of the Jedi Temple.
If I can just get there, everything will be okay. She clung to that thought like it was a life ring and she was a drowning person.
Unfortunately, it was nowhere in sight. She scanned the skyline multiple times over. Maybe it was blocked by one of the other skyscrapers. Even that word seemed an understatement for these structures; they towered miles into the sky, the scale of it all beyond anything she had ever seen. But no Temple.
Time to get help. Again.
She spotted a pale green Twi’lek woman dressed in an elegant purple gown leaning against the railing. She appeared to be waiting for someone. Desperation giving her courage, Violet made her way over.
“Excuse me? Which way is the Jedi Temple?”
The woman looked at her as if she had just crawled out of the sewer. “Get lost.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Violet muttered, hurrying away. Rude. Now what?
Through the bright neon lights and the throngs of people, her eyes caught on a flash of white. Not soft or natural like the robes of the other sentients, but sharp and reflective. Then it disappeared. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to see over the heads of the pedestrians, but it was no use.
A trio of ostentatiously-dressed men who had been conversing nearby stepped aside into a restaurant, and her view was temporarily unobstructed. Two clone troopers in red and white armor stood at the corner of a shop up ahead—relaxed, but armed and with helmets on. Not off duty, but there was no immediate danger either.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she found herself saying out loud. The Coruscant Guard. That would be the equivalent of going to a police officer, right? She threaded her way across the pedwalk, screwing up her courage as she went until she was right in front of the two troopers.
“Sir?”
The one on the left moved his hand to his blaster instinctively, and Violet winced. The one on the right held a hand up to stay his companion and looked down at her. She could see her own anxious reflection mirrored back at her in his visor. Turned out it was much more intimidating to face up to a six-foot guardsman in full plastoid armor than she would have thought from the movies.
She took a breath. Tried again. “I need to get to the Jedi Temple. Could you point me in the right direction?”
The one on the right looked at his companion. “What business do you have at the Temple?”
Perfect Kiwi accent. Violet almost laughed out loud. But the suspicion in his voice quelled her amusement rapidly. Her mind rummaged through possible options, trying to come up with something plausible that also wasn’t an outright lie.
“I...” Foundling instinct? Foundling instinct. She tried to make herself look as pitiful and frightened as possible, hoping that she looked younger than twenty-one. “I’m lost.” That part was true. “I wandered too far and my, uh—the Temple is my rendezvous point with my parents. I promise, if you can just direct me there, I’ll be out of your way.” It was sort of true, if you squinted.
From a certain point of view, her brain offered distractingly. She maintained a straight face, but just barely. Putting on her best puppy dog eyes impression, she silently thanked her own laziness that had led her to neglect putting on makeup. “Please?”
It must have worked, for she heard a sigh filter through the ventilators of his helmet. “Alright, kid. Temple’s that way.” He pointed slightly behind and to the right of himself. “Take a right at the next corner and you’ll see it. Keep walking towards it and you’ll get there eventually.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!” Some of the tension across her shoulders released. She started to turn away, anxious to move on before they changed their minds and decided to arrest her.
“Hey, kid.” The second trooper spoke up. Violet froze, turning slowly back around to face them. “About a half mile down that way you’ll see another pair of us. If you need something, tell ‘em Jek and Rys sent you.”
Jek and Rys...
Violet tried exceptionally hard not to beam at the pair, but only partially succeeded. “Thank you!”
As she walked away, a bubble of near-hysterical laughter threatened to burst in her throat, fueled by sheer relief, terror, and not the least bit of starstruck giddiness. She channeled it into courage.
“I won’t forget you!” She shouted over her shoulder at them. She just barely saw one raise a hand in return.
If this was a dream, it may not be the worst one. Everything was going to be okay.
Probably.